


I'm gonna draw my future like Picasso

by chronosaurus (kimnamjin)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Artists, Art...fluff?, Cute Ending, Drawing, First Meetings, Fluff, Han Jisung | Han is Whipped, It’s just minsung being adorable as always, Love at First Sight, M/M, Meet-Cute, Museums, Short & Sweet, Slice of Life, Thank u Boxer for the title ilu, art student!jisung, confident gay!Minho, idk what else to tag :/ welp, minho being beautiful for 3k, panicked gay!jisung, u know as he does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimnamjin/pseuds/chronosaurus
Summary: As if in slow motion, Jisung helplessly watched his beloved sketchbook careen to the floor, tumbling upside down and inside out until it landed with athumpon the hardwood. Face up. With the drawing of the boy now onfull display.Said boy quirked a brow at the sight, but when he caught what—orwho—is staring back at him from the paper, his eyes wentwide.Wordlessly, the stranger bent down to gently pluck the sketchpad off the floor. He flipped it around, so the portrait is facing the muse himself.“Is this...” The boy began, cocking his head. “Me?”Or: Jisung is an art student, who took a trip to the local gallery for some sketching practice. But then, in the middle of his drawing session, an incredibly ethereal boy strutted in. So Jisung did what he always does, when in the face of such inhuman beauty.He drew him.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 63
Kudos: 458





	I'm gonna draw my future like Picasso

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RosePetalsAndRain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosePetalsAndRain/gifts).



> Happy birthday Rain !!! <333 muah :*
> 
> (I’m an art history major so me writing a fic like this was Inevitable…..Okie enjoy !!)

****

Jisung didn't grow up with the intent to become an art student. 

****

Well, he supposes that depends on the definition of when he started “growing up”, and when he, subsequently, _stopped_.

****

As far as Jisung is concerned, he's _still_ growing up. Still a work in progress. Still erasing his uneven lines and touching up the slightly smudged edges of his life. 

****

It’s always been there, though, his voracious appetite to create; even when he didn’t consciously acknowledge it. Doodling in the margins of his notebooks, arranging his piles of eraser shavings into smiley faces, flowers, a flock of miniature birds flying through paper skies. Using ballpoints to pen fake tattoos on his arms in between taking notes, rearing snakes and daggers and all-seeing eyes. Drawing a finger through his spilled coffee, and swirling Van Gogh’s Starry Night across his kitchen counter. 

****

It’s incredible to Jisung, borderline magical, how one can just... _see_ something so vividly in their mind and then, after some work, it can _be_ _there._ Real, and tangible right before your eyes. 

****

So it should be no surprise to learn Jisung enrolled in art school the _second_ he graduated high school, and is currently a sophomore—if his patented paint-splattered denim overalls and black Converse covered from sole to tongue in abstract drawings didn’t already give it away. 

****

His parents wanted Jisung to be something more…. _“mainstream”,_ as parents are wont to do _._ But after thumbing through one of Jisung's hundreds of sketchbooks, they _knew;_ this is his calling _._ His destiny, even. 

****

Jisung and art are in a symbiotic relationship. One keeps the other alive, and vice versa. 

****

Jisung’s second home is the small art museum on the east side of town, past the floral gardens and the fountain signifying city center. It’s a modest gallery, but it’s where Jisung feels most _excited_ to create _._ A flood of artistic desire overtakes him, as soon as he pushes through those telltale glass doors. 

****

It’s midday on a Wednesday, and Jisung is exactly where he’s supposed to be. Doing exactly what he’s supposed to do.

****

He padded through the different rooms, having long since memorized the floorplan; surrealism, cubist, romantic, impressionist. He diverted past the pointillism exhibit, taking a shortcut through the landscape room until he found himself in a familiar gallery. It is themeless, simply an eclectic mix of styles, genre and subject matter.

****

And it is Jisung's absolute _favorite_ spot to sketch, when he needs a spark of inspiration. 

****

Jisung sucked in a breath, heaving in dust motes from the unwiped floors and the unmistakable spice of _wonder_ wafting through the halls. He slung his marigold yellow backpack off his shoulders, and quickly plucked his worn sketchpad from within. The thin book was buried under fully-squeezed tubes of acrylics and paint-caked brushes, but Jisung's fingers found the edge of the binding as if by second nature. 

****

He plopped down on a bench in the center of the gallery, slipped a teeth-bitten pencil from the front pocket of his overalls, and turned to a fresh page. And then, he got to work. 

****

He warmed up his fingers by sketching whatever his eyes landed on at random; a blue jay painted in the tree of a piece in the far right corner of the room. The fanciful dress of a Victorian maiden and her fluffy little pooch, hanging before him in an intricate gold frame. A still life of an orchid in a terra-cotta pot, stem spindly and petals velveteen even through the chipped oil strokes. 

****

Jisung’s features mellowed as the rounded graphite tip flew across the paper. What was once virgin white is now peppered in wispy lines of finespun grey. 

****

It's cathartic, the act of mindlessly sketching. It calms Jisung, keeps his heart steady and beating in perfect rhythm. And, after a particularly vicious sculpting final last week, it just about keeps him _sane._

****

Jisung had just put the finishing touches on a slightly abstract mimic of the dapper Edwardian lad that makes his home in the floor-length portrait by the door, when the telltale _click clack_ of approaching shoes roused him. 

****

From the far entrance way, the one adjoining the gallery with the landscape room, strolled a boy. While it’s not unheard of for Jisung to have company in the gallery on a weekday afternoon such as this, he still almost audibly _gasped_ as his eyes trailed the stranger. 

****

He's tall and lithe, broad shoulders and muscular thighs. He all but sauntered in, walking with the grace and ease of a _deer_. And he’s just about the most _gorgeous_ being Jisung’s ever laid eyes on; painted, sculpted _or_ living. 

****

Said boy strutted into the mishmashed gallery, and planted his polished boots right before a painting of a seascape at dusk. The delicate celadon waves pale in comparison to the sheer splendor of the boy’s features.

****

Jisung gulped as soon as he saw him, and felt himself gradually tipping backwards. He righted his body from tumbling to the wood grain below by digging his fingers into the underside of the bench. Despite keeping himself relatively steady, Jisung acutely felt the sensation of air whipping past his cheeks.

****

He feels like he's falling. _Flying._

****

The boy is still gazing thoughtful at the painting of the sea, as if trying to unknot a stubborn riddle. His eyes are large, doe like. His eyelashes are long and fan a pretty line of diffused shadow on his cheeks. His lips are thin, visibly glossed and shining under the fuzzy gallery lights. Held in a tender pout of contemplation, those lips are colored the same rosy pink as the cheeks of the debutant couples blushing in their portraits. 

****

His hair is straightened and laying across his brows, the silken strands a rich shade of warm, honey brown. Like the sunlight through maple leaves. 

****

Jisung blinked, and when he opened his eyes he fully expected the elegant boy to be gone. He expected to whip around, and instead see that beautiful face staring at him from within a canvas; head held high, shoulder line straight, skin as dewy as the coat of varnish rolled onto the paint. Jisung expected to see him make residence within a floor-length canvas, caramel hair rendered from delicate brushstrokes and pink lips stagnant on the surface. He's so gorgeous, he’s like a painting come to life. Like _art_ had been given flesh and bone and a heart. He simply shouldn't exist beyond the confines of a carved frame.

****

And yet when Jisung looked back, the boy is still in the gallery with him. Still alive, and not an intricate work of fiction. Now he's planted himself before the next painting over from the seascape. Another still life, of a rattan rocking chair next to a bay window. The new angle is now giving Jisung a perfect view of his _perfect_ profile. He’s perfect, if Jisung didn’t make that abundantly clear yet. 

****

_He's so beautiful,_ Jisung thought, awestruck. _I gotta sketch him._

****

Jisung's sketched living subjects before, of course, but he's never drawn anyone like _that._ He's never _seen_ anyone like him, ever in his life. Let alone in the same _room_ as him.

****

It's like something from a dream. That _boy_ is like a walking, blinking dream.

****

He knows what he must do, when in the face of such ethereal beauty.

****

Jisung messily flipped to a fresh page in his sketchbook, movements jerking and hasty. Borderline manic, and he positioned his pencil at the top of the blank sheet. He doesn’t want to waste a single _second._

****

His hand began to fly over the fresh page, ignoring the muddled smudges of grey that began to stain the skin under his pinky. He knows he must look like a _major_ weirdo right now, as his focused stare intermittently flicks back and forth from his sketch, to that boy, and back again. 

****

A delicate curve of feathery strokes here, and a head of perfectly styled hair is beginning to take shape. Smooth grey rather than creamy brown, as Jisung forgot his pack of pastels at his dorm. Soon after a pair of glittering eyes are gazing at him from the paper, expertly shaded with pinpricks of light and shadow. His stare is soft, somewhat distant. As if trying to catch a glimpse of the real boy himself from outside the bounds of the paper. Jisung unconsciously poked his tongue between his lips as he detailed his fringe, from the blinding intensity of his concentration. 

****

Pouty lips, highlighted with two-dimensional gloss on his Cupid’s bow. A sharp jaw casting a blot of darkness across his neck. Brow bones that bleed into the slopes of his cheeks. Line after line, form after form, Jisung’s pencil never ceased. Jisung is so entranced in sketching the boy, that he didn't even notice his muse has changed position again.

****

In fact, the object of his artistic trance is on the move. Scratch that. He's walking _towards_ Jisung. 

****

But he was blissfully unaware, until a pair of boots made their presence known beneath the edge of his sketchbook. Jisung’s hand stuttered to a halt, forcing a stray line of graphite to protrude from the otherwise austere, clean dip of the boy's throat. 

****

His eyes snapped up, and they’re instantly met with a pair that are sparkling, and impossibly dark. Jisung choked on his spit, and felt all the heat drain from his skin. He's been _caught._

****

The boy straight from a universe of tempera and gloss is standing right in front of Jisung, expression soft and expectant, and Jisung temporarily forgot how to breathe. 

****

“Excuse me,” He said, and the melodic quality of his voice caressed Jisung’s cheeks with a physicality that verges on impossible. 

****

“I saw you drawing, and you looked so,” the boy continued, gesturing vaguely with his hands as he pondered. They’re small and dainty, and Jisung would kill to do a full-page study on _just_ those hands. And maybe hold them, while he’s at it. 

****

“ _Focused.”_ He settled on. “Do you mind if I see what you've done?”

****

_Oh no,_ thought Jisung, suddenly nothing short of panicked. _No, no, no!_

****

Jisung felt his heart cleave in two. This is _bad._ “S-see?” Jisung squeaked past the cannon ball wedged behind his Adam's apple, eyes wide and brows pinched. The boy nodded, sending strands of honey brown fluttering about. 

****

He can't just let him _see_ , can he? Little does he know Jisung had just been casually sketching a portrait of the boy himself, and now he wants to _see!_

****

“I, um,” Jisung spluttered as his brain dissolved and reformed, melted and refroze. His mind is changing from sloshing pulp to jagged rock at too quickly a clip to control, to _translate._ As Jisung choked on his words, his vice grip on his sketchpad went limp, and it slipped from his hands. 

****

As if in slow motion, Jisung helplessly watched his beloved sketchbook careen to the floor, tumbling upside down and inside out until it landed with a soft _thump_ on the hardwood. Face up. With the drawing of the boy now on _full display._

****

Jisung saw his entire life flash before his eyes, until the world rewound and planted itself in the present once again. 

****

The beautiful boy quirked a brow at the sight, but when he caught what–or _who–_ is staring back at him from the paper, his eyes went _wide._

****

Wordlessly, the stranger bent down to gently pluck the sketchpad off the floor. He flipped it around, so the portrait is facing the muse himself. Jisung just sat there, dazed. Eyes agape and cheeks burning bright, scarlet red. 

****

“Is this...” The boy began, cocking his head. “Me?” 

****

And there you have it; the ending of Han Jisung’s life as we know it. 

****

He's too internally addled to even attempt to scrounge up an excuse. So instead of spluttering his way out of this, Jisung swallowed his pride with his hope, and nodded. 

****

Jisung expected to have his trusty sketchbook slapped in his face, coupled with an affronted bark of _“creep!”_

****

Maybe the beautiful boy will tear the paper to shreds, and stamp his luxe boots on the scraps. 

****

Jisung _never_ expected to hear a round of milky, sugary sweet giggles. He never expected to see the boy _grinning,_ when Jisung managed to pry his deadened gaze off the knobs of his knees beneath his paint-splattered denim overalls. 

****

The boy Jisung drew is smiling. A cheek splitting, blush inducing, _hypnotizing_ smile. Jisung now wishes he had his sketchbook back in his grasp, so he could pen that grin into permanence. 

****

“That’s amazing!” The boy chirped, his skin still flushed a lovely shade of pink. “I'm honored, really. You're _super_ talented.” 

****

He offered Jisung’s sketch pad back to him as he spoke, but he is much too taken aback to move. He said “ _talented”._ About _Jisung._ About the secret portrait Jisung _drew._ Of him! 

****

Not only does the boy _not_ think Jisung is a Class A Weirdo, he _complimented_ him! Jisung can hardly believe his ears, but that might be because they're still buzzing something _fierce_ from his wild heartbeat. 

****

Jisung blinked up at the offered sketchbook, eyes glazed and heavy lidded. He gazed silently, until the boy reached it further into Jisung’s space; as if trying to spur him from a waking dream.

****

It did the trick. Jisung jolted in realization, fumbling his pad out of the boy's hands with a sloppy bow of his head. 

****

“T-thanks! That really,” Jisung paused to shovel down an audible gulp, “Means a lot.” 

****

He wants to melt into a puddle and he wants to soar from the rooftops all at the same time. It's dizzying, and wonderful. Like that very boy himself.

****

The stranger sent him a soft smile, prettily curling the corners of his lips. “I'm Minho, by the way. It's lovely to meet you,” 

****

“Jisung!” He supplied, possibly too eagerly. “Great to meet you too, Minho. I'm an artist, b-but you probably realized that?” 

****

Minho’s grin shifted, just a tad. It became less so blinding, and more so tender. Fuzzy around the pretty pink edges, like the puffy head of a dandelion. 

****

“Never would have guessed, Jisung.” He teased, and Jisung’s blush reached atomic temperatures. Minho saying his name might as well be an auditory representation of a master signing their artwork. Putting that final, personal marker on what is already the pinnacle of beauty.

****

At Jisung’s prolonged, slightly stunned silence, Minho mused, “Well, hopefully I'll see you around?”

****

He began to turn on his heel.

****

Reality crashed over Jisung’s head like a brick to the skull, and his eyes flew open in horror. Minho can't leave! Not _yet,_ at least.

****

“Minho, wait!” Jisung called, frantically popping off the bench as if his life depended on it. With how the grip has long been scuffed off the soles of his Converse, he almost tumbled right to the floor in his haste. He scrambled for his pencil after regaining his balance, and jotted down a string of numbers on the bottom of the portrait as he trailed after Minho. 

****

Minho turned back to him, in time to see Jisung carefully tearing the drawing free from his sketchbook. 

****

Jisung held the slip out to Minho, as confidence began to overtake him. “I want you to have this.” 

****

Minho gazed unreadably at the offered drawing, at the portrait of his own face perfectly parroted onto the sheet. Until his lips bloomed into another beaming smile and Jisung had to lock his knees, lest they turn to jelly and fall out from under him. 

****

Minho carefully took the drawing from Jisung’s hand, movements cautious so as not to crease the paper. He gave the detailed image of his face another once over, his eyes heavy and shiny and brimming with light. 

****

But when he found the set of numbers written out in Jisung's patented chicken scrawl below the portrait, his wistful expression evolved again. Soon, Jisung found Minho smirking at him—wily and knowing. So knowing, in fact, that it made Jisung's skin prickle with goosebumps.

****

Minho sent Jisung a devilish wink. “I'll see you soon, Jisung.” 

****

And with that, he gracefully turned again and strutted out of the gallery. Nothing but the soft _thump_ of his retreating boots remained as a token. He left Jisung a blushing, jittery mess; a human representation of the incongruous splotches of paint splattered across his overalls.

****

Jisung blinked. He gulped, as Minho’s parting words rang through his head. 

****

_“I'll see you soon, Jisung.”_

****

The statement bopped between his ears like a rubber ball, knocking against the walls of his skull with enough force to send Jisung falling unconscious to the floor. 

****

From the surety in Minho’s voice alone, Jisung knows it was a promise.

****

Unable to contain himself, Jisung physically jumped for joy. He pumped his fist, as he whooped, “I’ll see him soon!” 

****

His cheer echoed through the gallery, shaking up the dust in the air. He only grounded himself once his kangaroo hops began to make the adjacent frames quake against the walls. 

****

Jisung clutched his sketchbook to his chest, and it warmed him from the outside in. Jisung’s breath is shaking as he thought, _I’ll see Minho soon._

****

He sent a final glance at the beauty peppering the walls around him, suddenly eager to get back to his dorm. His vision swam with pastels and cool tones and jeweled pigments, and all he manages to perceive is _color._

****

The color of the paintings, static and inanimate yet still harboring an almost magical sense of humanism. Almost like if you’d stare at them for _just_ long enough, the images would swirl and wink and come to life beneath the framing. The color of his hands; greyed around the edges of his palm, a parting kiss from graphite rubbing off his sketches. The blush from his cheeks that has spread to redden the pads of his fingers, and the tips of his ears. The brown of Minho’s hair, which flashes behind Jisung’s eyes with each blink.

****

Jisung has moved into a word of perpetual color, so he can't help but be partial to every hue of the known spectrum. He breathes in rainbows and exhales iridescence, his lungs swell with the nuances of blending shade with shade and tint with tint. Jisung _loves_ every and all color. He doesn't really think he has much of a choice in the matter.

****

But as he skipped from the gallery, as if stepping on a manicured pathway of clouds, Jisung realized something. He thinks he just found his official favorite color:

****

Rich, warm honey brown.

****

Like the sunlight through maple leaves. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos n stuff would be rlly appreciated if u enjoyed ❤️


End file.
